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Everything surrounding the case against General Flynn has been looked at, analyzed, and dissected, but it seems that the more we learn, the more questions arise. The Federalist posted an article today about the weaponization of the intelligence community by the Obama administration. I suspect that what we are learning is only a taste of what is to come. The article at The Federalist is complex, and I suggest that you follow the link to read the entire article. I will attempt to summarize the high points.

The article reports:

The drip-drip-drip of newly declassified documents related to the Trump-Russia investigation, together with recent reports that a classified leak against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn might not have come from an unmasking request, leaves little doubt that the Obama administration weaponized federal surveillance laws to target Trump associates and undermine the incoming administration.

The story thus far is complex, but it reveals a disturbing abuse of power by the Obama administration that suggests congressional reform of federal surveillance laws is needed to ensure this never happens again.

Just as a side note, I can assure you that if those who misused the intelligence community are not punished, we will see this again.

The article continues:

According to Rice’s bizarre email, which she wrote to herself as President Trump was being inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, Comey told Obama and Biden he had “some concerns that incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian Ambassador Kislyak,” and that “the level of communication is unusual.” How did Comey know this? Because the FBI had been spying on Flynn as part of a counterintelligence investigation it launched in August 2016.

Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador became national news after someone in the Obama administration illegally leaked to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who revealed in a Jan. 12, 2017, column that Flynn had spoken to Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, 2017.

That touched off an effort by Republicans to find out who leaked to the Post. Last week, responding to a request from Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell released a list of former senior Obama administration officials who requested the unmasking of Flynn between Nov. 30, 2016, and Jan. 12, 2017.

This is the important (often overlooked) fact:

But the dates of the unmasking requests don’t match up with Flynn’s Dec. 29 conversations with the Russian ambassador, which suggests Flynn was identified in an intelligence report that didn’t require the concealment of his identity. On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that, according to an anonymous former senior U.S. official, “When the FBI circulated [the report], they included Flynn’s name from the beginning,” and that, “There were therefore no requests for the unmasking of that information.”

This report matches with a theory floated over the weekend by National Review Online’s Andrew McCarthy, that Flynn’s call with Kislyak might have been “intercepted under an intelligence program not subject to the masking rules, probably by the CIA or a friendly foreign spy service acting in a nod-and-wink arrangement with our intelligence community.”

That is a very interesting question. President Obama was leaving office–his authority was over. Why would the FBI listen to him?

The article reports:

The FBI maintained that it opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, rather than providing Trump a defensive briefing on the report from a “friendly foreign government” that Russia had reached out to a member of his campaign to release damaging information on Hillary Clinton, because agents “had no indication as to which person in the Trump campaign allegedly received the offer from the Russians.” According to Counterintelligence Division Assistant Director E.W. “Bill” Priestap, “had we provided a defensive briefing to someone on the Trump campaign, we would have alerted the campaign to what we were looking into, and, if someone on the campaign was engaged with the Russians, he/she would very likely change his/her tactics and/or otherwise seek to cover-up his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding the truth.”

Former deputy director of the FBI Andy McCabe likewise told Inspector General Michael Horowitz “that he did not consider a defensive briefing as an alternative to opening a counterintelligence case” because, “based on the [Friendly Foreign Government] information, the FBI did not know if any member of the campaign was coordinating with Russia and that the FBI did not brief people who ‘could potentially be the subjects that you are investigating or looking for.’”

McCabe further explained that “in a sensitive counterintelligence matter, it was essential to have a better understanding of what was occurring before taking an overt step such as providing a defensive briefing.”

The article details what happened after the January 5th meeting in President Obama’s office:

While Comey found it important to tell the incoming commander-in-chief of the ridiculous “pee tape” “intel,” following Obama’s guidance the then-FBI director did not tell Trump that the FBI had an active investigation into Trump’s incoming national security advisor predicated on the idea that Flynn was potentially a Russian agent.

Even after Obama had left office and Comey had a new commander-in-chief to report to, Comey continued to follow Obama’s prompt by withholding intel from Trump. Recently released documents included as exhibits to the Department of Justice’s motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Flynn reveal this reality.

During that same January 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting in which Obama counseled Comey to be cautious in sharing information about Russia with the Trump administration, Obama and Comey discussed Flynn’s late-December telephone calls with the Russian ambassador.

The article concludes:

The FBI, however, is not solely to blame for keeping this “important” information from Trump: They were only following the counsel of former President Barack Obama.

While a young Amy Carter can be forgiven for her juvenile vision of departing the White House “content with the picture of Nancy Reagan struggling to clean out the oven,” there is no excuse for an outgoing president to withhold “intel” on supposed Russian agents from the president-elect. And there is no excuse for an outgoing president to advise hold-over high-ranking officials to do likewise once the new president has taken office.

Or, rather, the only excuse is an equally scandalous one: Obama knew the Russia investigation was a hoax from the get-go.

So much for President Obama participating in the smooth transition of power in our republic.

Mollie Hemingway posted an article at The Federalist today about the charges against former Vice-President Joe Biden.

The article reminds us of some of the details of the charges against Brett Kavanaugh:

…the Washington Post carefully packaged and presented Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh had tried to rape her when she was in high school. The media and Democrats immediately latched onto the accusation in a desperate attempt to keep Kavanaugh from being confirmed.

It wasn’t the quality of the allegation that led to this reaction. Blasey Ford had no evidence she had ever met Kavanaugh, much less that he had tried to rape her. She wasn’t sure about any detail related to the event other than that she had precisely one beer and that Kavanaugh had tried to rape her.

She didn’t know how she got to the alleged event, where it was, how she got home, or whose house it was. None of the four witnesses she identified to reporters as having been at the event in question supported her claim. That included her close friend Leland Keyser, who was pressured by mutual acquaintances to change her testimony that she had no recollection of the event in question. Kavanaugh had an army of close friends and supporters who testified to his character throughout his adolescence and adulthood.

Justice Kavanaugh’s remarks at the time were a foreshadowing of what is happening now:

I understand the passions of the moment, but I would say to those senators, your words have meaning. Millions of Americans listen carefully to you. Given comments like those, is it any surprise that people have been willing to do anything to make any physical threat against my family, to send any violent e-mail to my wife, to make any kind of allegation against me and against my friends. To blow me up and take me down.

You sowed the wind. For decades to come, I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind.

We are currently reaping that whirlwind. Time will tell whether or not the charges against Joe Biden are true, but we have opened up a Pandora’s Box in politics that was better left closed.

The Federalist posted an article today listing seven things that we have learned about Operation Crossfire Hurricane as documents are being declassified. None of these things make our intelligence-gathering communities look good. I am going to simply list the seven things. Please follow the link to the article to read the details. They are chilling:

Here is the list:

1. The FBI Always Intended to Spy on the Trump Campaign

2. FBI Failed to Brief Trump About Its Page Suspicions

3. The FBI Spied on the Trump Administration

4. Rep. Adam Schiff Is a Rotten, No-Good, Two-Faced Liar (his attacks on Devin Nunes were based on information he knew to be false).

5. FBI Relied Solely on Fake News to Support Portions of the FISA Applications

6. The Special Counsel Pushed Pathetic Intel Too

7. Oh, the Sweet Irony

As I previously stated, please follow the link to read the entire article.

In December 2018 The Federalist posted an article with the following title, “How Ballot-Harvesting Became The New Way To Steal An Election.” The article is still relevant today. So what is ballot-harvesting? Ballot-harvesting is the practice of party operatives collecting absentee or mail-in ballots and turning bunches of them in at a time. So why is this risky? A person can go into a nursing home with a handful of ballots, sit down with each resident (regardless of their mental capacity), fill out a ballot for them, have the resident sign it, and turn it in as the resident’s vote. There is no way of knowing if the ballot reflected the resident’s wishes.

The article notes:

With ballot-harvesting, paper votes are collected by intermediaries who deliver them to polling officials, presumably increasing voter turnout but also creating opportunities for mischief.

The latter is suspected in North Carolina, where uncharacteristic Democratic charges of vote fraud prompted an investigation into whether Republican-paid political operatives illegally collected and possibly stole absentee ballots in a still-undecided congressional race. A national spotlight was shone by The New York Times, which, like Democrats, often minimizes vote fraud; it flooded the zone in this case, assigning five reporters to a single story.

In California, by contrast, Democrats exulted as they credited a quietly passed 2016 law legalizing ballot-harvesting with their recent sweep of House seats in the former Republican stronghold of Orange County, thereby helping them win control of the House. In that case, it was Republican eyebrows that were arched. House Speaker Paul Ryan said what happened in California “defies logic.”

The article continues:

Only 16 states regulate ballot-harvesting at all, and their rules vary. In Colorado, one of three states to conduct all elections entirely by mail-in ballots, third-party volunteers are allowed to collect up to 10 ballots, though critics have long alleged that the practice is ripe for exploitation.

In November, Montana voters passed a state referendum banning the collection of ballots by third parties. Arizona’s 2016 ban against the practice, which had previously been linked to voter fraud in the state, was recently upheld by a federal appeals court, despite claims that it would disproportionately impact Latino voters who relied on third parties to help navigate the voting process.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is an activity that has successfully stolen elections in the past, and there is no reason to believe that it would not be used if voter laws were altered to allow voting by mail.

We are in the midst of a major health crisis. We need to be intelligent in handling this crisis. However, we also need to remember that our Constitution applies in ALL situations–crisis or not. Unfortunately some of our elected leaders have forgotten that.

The Federalist posted an article today about some of our elected leaders who have chosen to ignore the Constitution in dealing with the coronavirus.

The article reports:

The most egregious example of this outpouring of authoritarianism was an attempt by Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Greg Fischer to ban drive-in church services on Easter. On Holy Thursday, one day before Christians were to begin their most important religious celebrations of the year, Fischer declared that drive-in Easter services would be illegal.

To remove all doubt about his seriousness, he also threatened arrest and criminal penalties for anyone who dared violate his order, and in an Orwellian twist, invited people to snitch on their fellow citizens. Fischer justified this by saying it was “to save lives.”

…That’s a good start, but the targeting of churches, while undoubtedly the most offensive overreach by state and local governments, is hardly the only instance of government gone wild. In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has taken it upon herself to declare what items are and are not “essential,” dictating to grocery stores what they can and cannot sell as part of a sweeping order issued Friday.

Among the nonessential, and therefore banned, items are fruit and vegetable plants and seeds. Never mind that growing fruits and vegetables at home right now would help maintain social distancing during the pandemic, the governor has spoken and her word is law. (Lottery tickets, on the other hand, are still permitted.)

Beyond the fruit and vegetable ban, the governor’s order is an object lesson in the absurdity and inconsistency of arbitrary power and rule by fiat. Michiganders are banned from traveling “between residences” if they own a cottage or a summer home, but the ban only applies to Michigan residents, so an out-of-stater with a cottage in the Upper Peninsula could presumably still visit. The ban also still allows travel between states, so if a Michigander has a cottage in Wisconsin or Ohio, he can travel without fear of being arrested or fined by state police.

The article concludes:

Why did Whitmer tailor her order this way? Probably because she knows she has no authority to ban travel between states, or issue orders to Americans generally—no more than a mayor has the authority to shut down drive-in Easter services in his city.

That these officials need to be reminded of that, and in some cases restrained by federal judges, bodes very ill for America. Now more than ever, we need leaders who don’t just care about protecting us from the pandemic, but also care about preserving liberty in a time of crisis.

When we vote in November, we need to remember who was willing to abide by the Constitution and who used the coronavirus as an excuse for a power trip.

The Federalist posted an article today about Certificate of Need (CON) laws and how they are hindering America’s response to the coronavirus.

The article reports:

During a Tuesday press conference, Cuomo lashed out at the federal government for not sending enough ventilators as the Wuhan coronavirus continues to rattle the state. “Four hundred ventilators? I need 30,000 ventilators,” Cuomo said. “You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?” The state is projecting it will need approximately 140,000 beds in 14 to 21 days, which is higher than its previous estimation of 110,000 beds by early to mid-May.

However, New York, along with 35 other states and the District of Columbia, have in place what are known as certificate-of-need (CON) laws. According to Reason, “Their stated purpose is to keep hospitals from overspending, and thus from having to charge higher prices to make up for unnecessary outlays of capital costs. But in practice, they mean hospitals must get a state agency’s permission before offering new services or installing a new medical technology. Depending on the state, everything from the number of hospital beds to the installation of a new MRI machine could be subject to CON review.”

The article notes the impact of CON laws on patient mortality rates:

In addition to causing a lack of proper equipment, these rules harm patients. According to a study by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, states with CON laws have a 2.5 to 5 percent higher mortality rate than those without. Wait times have also been affected, with the average delay in New York City emergency rooms ranging from seven to 10 hours before the virus outbreak added strain to an already poorly operating medical system.

The article concludes:

Luckily, efforts to eradicate this onerous red tape have already begun, as South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued an executive order suspending CON law enforcement in the state. Governors like Cuomo would be wise to follow suit and slash these burdensome regulations to allow for the expansion of new medical facilities and COVID-19 treatments.

More government control of our health-care industry is the exact opposite of what should be happening in Washington, D.C, and states around the country. Instead, lawmakers across the nation should be focusing on getting rid of these big-government barriers that make it more difficult for doctors and medical experts to treat patients. Letting the market solve its own problems is the answer to many of our problems in health care. The government needs to know when to step out of the way.

On March 23, I posted an article about how CON laws are impacting New Hampshire’s response to the coronavirus. Hopefully the problems caused by these laws during this health crisis will cause states to revisit them. Unfortunately, hospitals like the monopolies the laws give them and are willing to put forth massive lobbying efforts. Lawmakers need to rise above the politics and lobbyists and do what is best for the people they are supposed to represent.

The Federalist posted an article today about the State of California’s legal case against David Daleiden. David Daleiden is director of the Center for Medical Progress, the group that exposed the sale of aborted baby body parts by Planned Parenthood.

The article reports:

An undercover reporter has been arraigned in California and charged with ten felonies for secretly recording conversations, and it’s time to revisit how the judiciary and the law can stifle the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press.

The accused, David Daleiden, used standard media undercover techniques to investigate and expose Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted fetus body parts. While the use of undercover techniques like Daleiden’s is a controversial practice even within journalism circles, Daleiden’s upcoming jury trial has far wider implications for journalists.

Namely, can and should government criminalize undercover reporting, which historically has revealed otherwise hidden wrongdoing of all kinds?

The article cites the history of investigative journalism:

Let’s first put aside that Daleiden, as director of the Center for Medical Progress, is a pro-life activist—which is not a crime. He should have the same right to penetrate the practices of America’s abortion providers and report his findings just as other reporters and publications investigate other matters.

Consider the multitude of covertly conducted investigations exposing threats to public health and safety, racism, and various other injustices, dating back to the dawn of our republic. To mention a few: In a classic case of disguised reporters using hidden cameras, ABC “Prime Time Live” outed Food Lion’s alleged unsanitary food handling practices. “Dateline” NBC deployed decoys and hidden cameras to expose men who solicited sex with minors on the Internet. Vanity Fair had a clandestine reporter join a tour group to the Holy Land to probe then-President George W. Bush’s alleged ties to religious right leaders.

Unfortunately, David Daleiden exposed something that the media did not want exposed.

The article concludes:

Even if the government’s action were bias-free, Daleiden’s pursuit still jeopardizes quality journalism. The California accusations are based on the claim his targets had an expectation of privacy even when the conversations were conducted in a public place, like a restaurant or hotel convention hall, where bystanders could hear them. It’s a ludicrous assertion, a gross misinterpretation, and an undue and overbroad extension of the law.

…The Los Angeles Times deemed the prosecution “disturbingly aggressive” and an “overreach.”

Possible prison sentences and burdensome fines attached to criminal conduct cannot be ignored in this debate. They are more than a disincentive to expose wrongdoing; they give the upper hand to criminal enterprises, powerful corporations, avenging politicians, ideologues, and special interests to protect themselves from public condemnation and costly penalties for misconduct. This is not a loophole that the Founding Fathers had in mind when they crafted the constitutional protection of freedom of the press.

Even those who disagree with Daleiden and his techniques but care about how the precedent-setting legal actions against him that could define press freedom in the future need to follow this case as it winds through the legal system, possibly all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the problem with Planned Parenthood continues. Millions of aborted baby body parts continue to be sold. No one in Congress has the backbone to make this totally illegal–the Democrats are being paid off by Planned Parenthood PAC’s and the Republicans have no spine.

“We had years where people were saying a couple hundred thousand dollars in barely literate Facebook ads from Russians caused Donald Trump to win. Here you had a guy spend nearly $1 billion and he went nowhere. It’s a humiliating defeat for Michael Bloomberg,” she said.

Host Bret Baier drilled the point home: “So Russians influenced the election with $200,000, or $300,000 in Facebook ads? And Mike Bloomberg couldn’t get more than 50 delegates with $600 million dollars?”

“And this hurts Bernie Sanders’s message, too, because he likes to say the billionaires control everything,” Hemingway said. “Clearly Bloomberg having all this money didn’t do as much for him as Biden having the media and the establishment behind him. I would pick media and establishment over millions all day.”

If money could buy elections, we would have either President Jeb Bush or President Hillary Clinton. American voters do respond to ads, but they also have common sense.

On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act.

The article reports:

The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act is not about restricting abortions but about giving newborns a chance to survive no matter where they are born, said Sen. Ben Sasse, the bill’s lead co-sponsor, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.

During the hearing, called “The Infant Patient: Ensuring Appropriate Medical Care for Children Born Alive,” Republican senators questioned why a baby born in a hospital should be treated differently than a baby born in an abortion facility. Democrats, lacking an answer, changed the subject.

Thirteen committee senators heard from five female witnesses, three who shared powerful testimony and two who expressed concerns about the bill.

The article includes the testimony of some of witnesses. Three of the witnesses who were involved in the medical profession related some of the incidents where babies were tossed aside after being born alive during an abortion.

The article also includes the testimony of those who opposed the bill.

The article reports:

Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of National Women’s Law Center, argued instead that, “Access to reproductive health care, including abortion, is a key part to an individual’s liberty, equality, and economic security.” Since 2010, state lawmakers have passed more than 450 abortion restrictions designed to block access to abortion, she said.

Sasse tried to clarify numerous times that this legislation was not about abortion but about what happens after an abortion. Neither Graves nor the Democratic senators in the room agreed. Graves said she believes the bill is on a continuum of restrictive abortion measures. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, agreed, saying that women’s health is under attack every day, especially under Trump, and that this bill is the latest in a decades-long threat against abortion.

Instead of arguing for or against protecting infants born alive, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., argued U.S. health care is biased against African-American women. Instead of fighting for legislation that protects infants born alive, Harris argued we should make taxpayers provide better housing and food for pregnant women.

While Harris might be right that pregnant women need more support, this is not the question at hand. Right now, if a doctor neglected to provide a pregnant woman needed care, he would be prosecuted. This is not true for the child in her womb. Instead of addressing this disparity, Harris simply changed the subject.

Abortion is a million-dollar business. It is also an industry that makes large donations through Political Action Committees (PAC’s) to Democrat campaigns. We are not likely to see Democrats vote against abortion and risk those campaign donations.

The Federalist posted an article today about the Inspector General’s (IG) report on Operation Crossfire Hurricane.

The article notes:

Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson dropped that bombshell in a letter delivered to Attorney General William Barr that requested Barr declassify the information hidden in the redacted footnotes. While the declassified version of the Grassley-Johnson letter did not identify the four footnotes at issue, a detailed analysis of the IG report suggests the redacted information concerned Christopher Steele’s sources and potentially the FBI’s purported predication for the launch of Crossfire Hurricane. These conclusions come from a deep-dive into the IG report read in tandem with the Grassley-Johnson letter.

That letter noted that the senators had “reviewed the classified report of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with regard to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, and [were] deeply concerned about certain information that remains classified.” Their concern? “That certain sections of the public version of the report are misleading because they are contradicted by relevant and probative classified information redacted in four footnotes.”

The next sentence is the key, as it establishes that the redacted information concerns not just a few details addressed in the IG report, but goes to the heart of the entire Crossfire Hurricane investigation: “This classified information is significant not only because it contradicts key statements in a section of the report, but also because it provides insight essential for an accurate evaluation of the entire investigation.”

The author of the article reads between the lines to list the contradictions within the report and provides the connections between the parts of the report’s footnotes that were redacted and areas of the report those footnotes contradict. The bottom line here is that the redactions are made to protect the intelligence community–not in the interest of national security.

The article concludes:

Without Barr declassifying the information contained in these footnotes, as well as other material, such as the complete FISA applications, we’ll just have to take Grassley and Johnson’s word that the redacted information contradicts other portions of the IG report, making “certain sections of the public version of the report” “misleading.” However, given the accuracy and honesty of Rep. Devin Nunes’ memo on FISA abuse, I’m inclined to trust the Republican senators.

It’s time for full disclosure. The people in the government who misused their power seem very comfortable with the idea that they will not be held accountable for their misconduct. I hope they are wrong.

The Federalist is reporting today that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) presiding Judge James Boasberg has chosen David Kris to review the FBI’s proposed changes to its surveillance application process.

The article notes:

Kris, who served as assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s National Security Division, recently claimed the IG report that catalogued egregious abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) powers actually vindicated the FBI. He also smeared Rep. Devin Nunes in 2018, saying his initial sounding of the alarm about those abuses was incorrect, threatened national security, and should be harshly punished.

Kris appeared in locations that pushed the false Russia collusion narrative, such as Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, the Lawfare blog, and Twitter, to defend the FBI and attack President Trump and other critics of the harmful surveillance campaign. He once wrote that Trump “should be worried” that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into treasonous collusion with Russia meant “the walls are closing in.”

The appointment of a former official who served as an apologist for the FBI signals that the court isn’t particularly concerned about the civil liberty violations catalogued by Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into the year-long surveillance of Carter Page. Page is the Trump campaign affiliate whose phone and email communications federal agents wiretapped, and who had confidential human sources and overseas intelligence assets placed against him. False claims that Page was a Russian spy were leaked to the media by government officials as part of a years-long campaign to paint President Trump as a traitor who had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

This is not good news for our country. It shows that the deep state is still protecting itself and will continue to do so at least in the near future. Dirty cops will not be dealt with as long as they have the right political views. We are at a tipping point–either we are going to have equal justice under the law or we are going to live in a surveillance state. The only way to change this is for voters to vote anyone out of office who hindered in any way the investigations into the corruption that took place at the senior levels of the Department of Justice, FBI, IRS, etc., under the Obama administration.

One of the things the media became expert at during the Obama administration was deflection. They were good at it before then, but they perfected it during the Obama years. The current impeachment trial is one example of deflection.

On December 16th, The Federalist posted an article that tells a story that the Democrats in Congress have fought to avoid telling.

The article reports:

Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.

In 2018, the Daily Beast reported that a number of businesses linked to Kolomoisky hired Powell as an attorney. One of those firms paid Powell at least $700,000 over two years, according to public records.

The Miami Herald reported Powell was working for companies tied to Kolomoisky for 10 years. Powell made most of his money in the two years leading up to his wife’s election in 2018.

Kolomoisky has been accused of contract killings and embezzlement in the past. Yet, in 2018 when Mucarsel-Powell was running for her seat, she did not see her husband’s work as relevant to her campaign.

“Debbie Mucrasel-Powell is running for Congress, not her husband. To imply that Debbie has anything to do with her indirect shareholder of a parent company that once employed her husband is an enormous stretch,” said Michael Hernandez, senior communications advisor for her campaign in 2018.

While Mucrasel-Powell may have convinced her constituents that her husband’s work is unrelated, it is a clear conflict in the current impeachment of Trump. Mucarsel-Powell voted to impeach Trump.

The article concludes:

And yet, no Democrats see a problem with one of their own committee members’ spouses doing business with a Ukrainian ogliarch. There has been no check on whether Mucrasel-Powell is benefitting from her husband’s work with a foreign power that interfered in the 2016 election.

There is a double standard in Mucrasel-Powell’s ability to impeach the President for his work in Ukraine, simultaneously, allowing her husband to earn money from Kolomoisky, a thug from the same foreign power.

The alternative media still includes a number of investigative reporters. It is quite likely that more of this sort of information will be uncovered in the near future. We may be about to discover how someone can enter Congress as a member of the Middle Class and emerge ten years later as a millionaire on a salary of $174,000 while supporting a home in their district and one in Washington, D.C.

One of the recent rafts the media is clinging to in the impeachment circus is the idea that the transcript was doctored or incomplete. Well, that raft got blown out of the water yesterday. For those who have tuned out the hearings because they are extremely boring, The Federalist posted an article yesterday noting an interesting fact that was revealed in yesterday’s testimony.

The article reports:

In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, both Jennifer Williams, an adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman stated that the transcript of the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zolodymyr Zelensky was substantively accurate.

In direct response to a question as to whether the transcript was complete and accurate, neither suggested that it was not, except for minor details they found in their notes of the call.

This testimony blows up a month-long lie pushed by Democrats and their media allies that the transcript was partial, or redacted, suggesting that the White House was potentially hiding important details. For weeks the baseless claim that the transcript was so doctored that we don’t really know what happened on the call has been floated all over mainstream media coverage.

The article concludes:

Will CNN anchors stop referring to the “partial transcript” now that two of the Democrats’ star witnesses, who were on the actual call, have stated that the transcript is accurate? Don’t count on it. Will the news media apologize for or even acknowledge that they have been pushing this nonsense for over a month? Even in the unlikely case that they have the honor to do so, as the old saw goes, a lie can make it halfway around the world while the truth is getting its shoes on.

Tuesday’s confirmation that the transcript of the July 25 phone call was substantively accurate takes away a major talking point for those seeking the impeachment of President Trump. The whole reason this duplicitous talking point existed was that the president’s critics found the call wasn’t as damning as they hoped it would be. Perfect or not, nothing impeachable occurred on the call, so it was necessary to pretend that maybe we were missing some key information.

That is over now. The transcript is the transcript, the call is the call. Yet another ace in this crumbling house of impeachment cards has tumbled to the floor. And Democrats and media know it.

What we need now is a “Perry Mason moment” when the accusers realize they have no case, the charges are dismissed, and everyone goes home and stops wasting taxpayer money. Unfortunately that is highly unlikely.

The Federalist posted an article today about the recent California jury decision that found undercover journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt and several of their associates guilty of trespass, breach of contract and of non-disclosure agreements, and fraud, as well as state and federal laws prohibiting the unconsented recordings of third parties. The California-based jury also found that Daleiden and the other defendants had violated the federal Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law—a federal statute that triples any damage award. The defendants were also hit with punitive damages exceeding $800,000.

The article reports:

On Friday, a jury awarded Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and multiple Planned Parenthood affiliates, damages set to exceed $2.3 million in their civil case against undercover journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt and several of their associates. The country’s largest cohort of abortion providers sued Daleiden and his colleagues after the 2015 release of a series of investigative videos that exposed Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in fetal parts.

The article explains why the case will probably eventually make its way to the Supreme Court:

Daleiden’s lead attorney, Peter Breen, of the public policy legal firm Thomas More Society, promised an appeal. “We intend to seek vindication for David on appeal,” Breen said in a press release. “This lawsuit is payback for David Daleiden exposing Planned Parenthood’s dirty business of buying and selling fetal parts and organs,” Breen added, noting, “We intend to seek vindication for David on appeal. His investigation into criminal activity by America’s largest abortion provider utilized standard investigative journalism techniques, those applied regularly by news outlets across the country.”

Breen has several solid grounds for appeal, and initially will likely challenge presiding judge William Orrick III’s refusal to recuse from the case. While appellate courts are hesitant to second-guess a trial court’s decision on whether recusal is required, in this case the facts strongly suggest recusal was required.

Specifically, Judge Orrick was a founder and a longtime officer and director of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, an organization which, according to Daleiden, houses and participates in a joint venture with one of the named Planned Parenthood affiliates. Further, during the pendency of this case, as Breen pointed out in briefing, Orrick was “held out to the public as serving as an Emeritus Board Member of [the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center].”

Judge Orrick’s refusal to allow Daleiden and the other defendants to testify concerning their reasonable beliefs about abuses in the fetal tissue business, from harvesting of organs from born-alive babies to selling tissue and body parts for profit, as well as the judge’s decision barring the admission of the video evidence, will also be areas ripe for reversal.

What David Daleiden did used to be called investigative journalism. What he uncovered needed to be uncovered. The only redeeming thing about this case having to go to the Supreme Court is that it will further expose the selling of aborted baby body parts and the callousness of the people in Planned Parenthood who are engaged in these activities. Callousness is not illegal, but selling aborted baby body parts should be.

The Federalist posted an article today about a recent decision by the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ), the highest court in the EU. The court ruled that Jewish products made in contested areas of Israel must bear consumer warning labels.

The article notes:

Prior to the ruling, U.S. lawmakers in Congress fired warning shots, cautioning the EU that such a move would prompt the enforcement of American anti-boycott laws, thus endangering the EU’s trade with the United States.

Now, according to reporting by Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon, the Trump administration is ready to go to battle over the ruling. Currently, the United States is the EU’s largest trading partner.

The origins of the legal dispute stretch back several years to when the EU issued a mandate in 2015 declaring that products produced in the West Bank and Golan Heights be labeled as coming from an Israeli settlement, facially for the purpose of promoting “consumer protection,” although it’s unclear if that is actually achieved here. In late 2016, France became the first EU member state to attempt to enforce the mandate, resulting in the Israeli winery Psagot filing a lawsuit claiming that such a mandate violated the EU’s anti-discrimination laws.

Under the new rule, goods produced by Jews will be labeled as having been produced in an Israeli settlement, while goods produced by Muslims may be labeled as made in “Palestine,” indicating blatant discriminatory treatment. Unsurprisingly, Israel’s presence in the West Bank and the Golan Heights are the only contested areas in the world to be the focus of the labeling ire of the EU.

The article notes that Israel is the only country singled out for this treatment:

“No other territory, occupied, disputed, or otherwise is subject to such requirements,” noted Eugene Kontorovich, director of the Center for International Law in the Middle East at George Mason University. Kontorovich emphasized the peculiarity of the ruling. “In no other case does any ‘origin labeling’ require any kind of statement about the political circumstances in the area. This is a special Yellow Star for Jewish products only.”

Indeed, there are a multitude of contested areas throughout the world that produce goods for which the EU has deemed politicized labeling requirements unnecessary. Despite Russia’s occupation of parts of Georgia or Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara, nothing in EU law or greater international law requires labeling goods produced by Russia in occupied parts of Georgia as “Made in Georgia” or goods produced by Morocco in Western Sahara as “Made in Western Sahara.”

Just a side note about the concept of contested territories. If you look at a map of the land originally given to form a Jewish state, it not only includes the ‘contested territories,’ it includes Jordan. The country of Jordan was originally intended to be the Palestinian state (as there had never been a Palestinian state), but was turned over to the Hashemites. For pictures illustrating the history of Israeli territory, go here.

There is an article posted at The Federalist which details some of the information in the book.

The article notes:

AFTER DONALD TRUMP was elected forty-fifth president of the United States, the operation designed to undermine his campaign transformed. It became an instrument to bring down the commander in chief. The coup started almost immediately after the polls closed.

Hillary Clinton’s communications team decided within twenty-four hours of her concession speech to message that the election was illegitimate, that Russia had interfered to help Trump.

Obama was working against Trump until the hour he left office. His national security advisor, Susan Rice, commemorated it with an email to herself on January 20, moments before Trump’s inauguration. She wrote to memorialize a meeting in the White House two weeks before.

The email is posted in the article.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, Obama added his voice to the Trump-Russia echo chamber as news stories alleging Trump’s illicit relationship with the Kremlin multiplied in the transition period. He said he hoped “that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia.”

The outgoing president was in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss everything from NATO to Vladimir Putin. Obama said that he’d “delivered a clear and forceful message” to the Russian president about “meddling with elections . . . and we will respond appropriately if and when we see this happening.”

After refusing to act while the Russian election meddling was actually occurring, Obama responded in December. He ordered the closing of Russian diplomatic facilities and the expulsion of thirty- five Russian diplomats. The response was tepid. The Russians had hacked the State Department in 2014 and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2015. And now Obama was responding only on his way out.

The book credits Devin Nunes with figuring out what was going on and beginning to look into the scandal. I strongly suggest that you follow the link above to read the entire article. It is an amazing timeline detailing what was actually going on in the waning days of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration.

According to conservative news sources, the troop withdrawal from the Turkish border is simply moving fifty troops–it is not a withdrawal. I wish it were a withdrawal, we are not currently capable of fighting a war right now–we are unable to unite and focus on the job at hand.

Congress is the institution vested with the power to declare wars, to debate where we send troops, and decide which conflicts are funded. Presidents have been ignoring this arrangement, abuse authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs), and imbue themselves with the power to engage in conflicts wherever they like, without any coherent endgame, and without any buy-in from Congress.

Congress, in turn, has shown no interest in genuinely challenging executive power, because its members are far more concerned with political self-preservation. Ignoring abuse shields them from tough choices and ensuing criticism—even as they use war as a partisan cudgel.

Even if you don’t believe all these conflicts rise to an Article I declaration, and I don’t, the more accountability there is in foreign entanglements the better. Right now we have little genuine debate or consensus building—in a nation that already exhibits exceptionally little interest in foreign policy—regarding the deployment of our troops, almost always in perpetuity, around the world.

It’s a bipartisan problem. Barack Obama, whose political star rose due to his opposition to the Iraq war, was perhaps our worst offender, circumventing Congress and relying on a decade-old AUMF (authorizations for the use of military force), which he invoked 19 times during his presidency, to justify a half-hearted intervention against ISIS (not al-Qaeda) in Syria (not Afghanistan.)

The article notes that military overreach is a problem in both parties:

It’s a bipartisan problem. Barack Obama, whose political star rose due to his opposition to the Iraq war, was perhaps our worst offender, circumventing Congress and relying on a decade-old AUMF, which he invoked 19 times during his presidency, to justify a half-hearted intervention against ISIS (not al-Qaeda) in Syria (not Afghanistan.)

Trump could bomb Iran tomorrow, use Obama’s reasoning, and have a far stronger legal defense for his actions.

It was also Obama who joined Europeans in the failed intervention in Libya, where he worked under NATO goals rather than the United States law. There was hardly a peep from Democrats fretting over the corrosion of the Constitution.

American would function much more efficiently if our Congressmen and President would simply follow the U.S. Constitution. At this point I am not sure many of them have read it–although they did take an oath to uphold it.

There were two articles posted at The Federalist yesterday (here and here) about the current circus in the House of Representatives. I suspect this is not going exactly the way the Democrats had intended.

The first article notes:

In tense testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Friday, the inspector general for federal spy agencies refused to disclose why his office backdated secret changes to key whistleblower forms and rules in the wake of an anti-Trump whistleblower complaint filed in August, sources told The Federalist.

As The Federalist reported and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) confirmed, the spy watchdog secretly changed its whistleblower forms and internal rules in September to eliminate a requirement that whistleblowers provide first-hand evidence to support any allegations of wrongdoing. In a press release last week, the ICIG confessed that it changed its rules in response to an anti-Trump complaint filed on August 12. That complaint, which was declassified and released by President Donald Trump in September, was based entirely on second-hand information, much of which was shown to be false following the declassification and release of a telephone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The first article concludes:

Several top lawmakers in the Senate raised similar concerns about Atkinson’s behavior in a separate letter.

“Why did the IC IG initially require first-hand information in its May 2018 disclosure form?” the senators asked. “Why did the IC IG remove the requirement for first-hand information?”

Atkinson has not answered their questions, either, raising questions that his behavior following his receipt of the anti-Trump complaint might not be completely above board. Atkinson ignored legal guidance from both the director of national intelligence and the Department of Justice that the anti-Trump complaint was statutorily deficient and forwarded it to HPSCI even though it did not meet the legal definition of an “urgent concern” that is required to be given to Congress.

The embattled ICIG also admitted on Friday that the anti-Trump complainant lied on his whistleblower complaint form by concealing the complainant’s previous secret interactions with House Democratic staff prior to submitting the complaint. Atkinson never even bothered investigating potential coordination between the complainant, whom DOJ said showed evidence of partisan political bias, and House Democrats prior to the filing of the anti-Trump complaint.

The second article is more of a history of the entire Ukraine scandal. It mentions the fact that there are genuine concerns about Ukraine interference in the 2016 American presidential election.

The second article also suggests some motivation behind this current circus:

The Democrats’ case for impeachment is hopeless, but their motivation is simple. They whipped up their base into such a delusional frenzy during the “Russia investigation,” they have to keep the narrative going at all costs. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces a rebellion from her caucus if she doesn’t go along with it.

There may be a more serious motivation behind this:

But there’s a group of intelligence bureaucrats at work here, and their motivation is a bit different. An immediate motive may be to prevent an investigation into how the Russia probe started. This includes an investigation into how a document the Hillary Clinton campaign created — using anonymous Russians and a British national tied to Russia — was used by our intelligence agencies to investigate Trump.

The other possible motivation is more complex. During the “Russia investigation,” many in the intelligence agencies worked to subvert Trump’s foreign policy and remove Trump, through spying, a large series of leaks, and articles planted with friendly outlets. Trump’s campaign was even spied on before the election, via something called the “two-hop rule,” once a secret court granted a warrant to spy on Trump campaign officials such as Carter Page.

Because of this, the White House moved to cut off the broader “intelligence community” — inexorably tied to America’s foreign policy establishment that Trump ran against — from information the White House knew many in the intelligence agencies would use to selectively leak.

That could mean some of what’s going on today, at least from the CIA angle, is intelligence bureaucrats “striking back” because they lost their access to diplomatic communications, a coveted source of the intelligence community’s power. But even the Obama administration liked to hide diplomatic calls from the broader intelligence community, which should tell us something about that bureaucracy.

The second article includes the following statement:

In other words, the real big takeaway here is that we have a problem with our Washington bureaucracy, including our intelligence agencies, which have routinely crossed the line into policymaking. How much of the impeachment mess is due to CIA bureaucrats being incensed that Trump, who is elected, would dare to question military aid to Ukraine, and would dare to curtail their eavesdropping on diplomacy?

What we see here is an illustration of the reason why we need to drain the swamp.

If you are someone who relies on the mainstream media, you are probably ready to impeach President Trump. That is sad and destructive. The media has been leading the charge on impeachment since January 2017 when President Trump was sworn in. This is a political activity aimed as defeating the President in the 2020 election. If it works, it will provide the template for future campaigns. That will be very damaging to our republic, particularly if the media decides to take sides as they have currently done.

The Federalist posted an article yesterday about the testimony of Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served for two years as the top U.S. diplomatic envoy to Ukraine.

The article reports:

Congressional testimony from the former top American envoy to Ukraine directly contradicts the impeachment narrative offered by congressional Democrats and their media allies. Ambassador Kurt Volker, who served for two years as the top U.S. diplomatic envoy to Ukraine, testified on Thursday that he was never aware of and never took part in any effort to push the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter. He also stressed that the interactions between Giuliani and Ukrainian officials were facilitated not to find dirt on Biden, but to assuage concerns that the incoming Ukrainian government would not be able to get a handle on corruption within the country.

Volker’s full remarks, which were obtained by The Federalist, can be read here.

The article continues:

Volker said that an advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Volker to connect the advisor to Rudy Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Donald Trump.

“[I]n May of this year, I became concerned that a negative narrative about Ukraine, fueled by assertions made by Ukraine’s departing Prosecutor General, was reaching the President of the United States, and impeding our ability to support the new Ukrainian government as robustly as I believed we should,” Volker said. “After sharing my concerns with the Ukrainian leadership, an advisor to President Zelensky asked me to connect him to the President’s personal lawyer, Mayor Rudy Giuliani.”

“I did so solely because I understood that the new Ukrainian leadership wanted to convince those, like Mayor Giuliani, who believed such a negative narrative about Ukraine, that times have changed and that, under President Zelensky, Ukraine is worthy of U.S. support,” Volker said. “I also made clear to the Ukrainians, on a number of occasions, that Mayor Giuliani is a private citizen and the President’s personal lawyer, and that he does not represent the United States government.”

Volker vehemently denied that he ever urged the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on the Biden family.

“As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion,” he said.

Volker testified that he never even mentioned a delay on U.S. military assistance to Ukrainian officials until late August, when news reports indicated that funding had been put on hold. Volker’s statement directly undercuts claims that the funding was part of a quid pro quo meant to force the Ukrainians to take certain actions in order for the military aids to be released.(The underline is mine.)

As you can see this latest attempt to discredit President Trump is smoke and mirrors. Unfortunately it will continue until the politicians behind it are voted out of office. Those government officials who have used their office either for personal gain or to spy on their political opposition need to face severe penalties.

The Federalist posted an article yesterday about a question surrounding the latest attempt to impeach President Trump.

The article notes:

Republican lawmakers in both the Senate and House on Monday demanded answers from the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) about secret revisions to the office’s guidance on “urgent concern” whistleblower complaints. The Federalist first reported last week that between May 2018 and August 2019, the ICIG secretly eliminated its requirement that potential whistleblowers provide only first-hand evidence of alleged wrongdoing.

In their letter to Michael Atkinson, the ICIG, Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) noted that the anti-Trump complainant offered no direct, first-hand evidence of alleged wrongdoing against President Donald Trump. Instead, the complaint is littered with gossip, hearsay, and rumor. The lawmakers specifically asked the ICIG to explain when the whistleblower guidance was revised, by whom, and for what reason.

“Based on the language on [the May 24, 2018] form, it appears that the requirement for first-hand information has been an ICIG policy regardless of how a whistleblower makes an urgent concern report,” they wrote. “Curiously the urgent disclosure form that now appears on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence website has recently changed and no longer contains this explicit first-hand information requirement.”

“[T]he timing of the removal of the first-hand information requirement raises questions about potential connections to this whistleblower’s complaint,” the lawmakers continued. “This timing, along with numerous apparent leaks of classified information about the contents of this complaint, also raise questions about potential criminality in the handling of these matters.”

The letter informs the ICIG that he must provide answers to their questions about the timing and rationale of the secret changes to the whistleblower guidance by noon on Thursday, October 3. The lawmakers told the ICIG to treat the letter as a formal demand to preserve all evidence related to the changes to the internal ICIG whistleblower rules.

The timing of this change, along with the willingness to ignore Vice-president Biden’s obvious successful attempt to leverage aid to Ukraine to prevent an investigation into some questionable business dealings of his son, is questionable at best. It does appear that there are un-elected people inside our government working with elected officials and a compliant media to undo the results of an election. Those people, along with their allies, need to face consequences for their actions–they are undermining our republic.

There is also the obvious question, “Why is the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who is supposed to be investigating the intelligence community, investigating the President?” That investigation is outside of his authority. The ‘whistleblower,’ who is actually simply a leaker, is not acting within the law as it is written.

I have read the transcript of the telephone call between President Trump and President Zelensky.

This is how Adam Schiff characterized that call (The Federalist, September 26, 2019):

And what is the President’s response — well it reads like a classic organized crime shake down. In essence, what the President Trump communicates is this: We’ve been very good to your country. Very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what, I don’t see much reciprocity here. You know what I mean? I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you though. And I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of dirt, on this and on that. I’m going to put you in touch with people, and not just any people. I’m going to put you in touch with the Attorney General of the United States — my Attorney General, Bill Barr — he’s got the whole weight of American law enforcement behind him. And I’m going to put you in touch with Rudy, you’re going to love him. Trust me. You know what I’m asking, so I’m only going to say this a few more times, in a few more ways. And don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I asked.

This is an inflammatory lie. There is nothing in the transcript that reads anything like that. One thing that you do take away from the transcript is that Ukraine is also dealing with issues of the deep state. They are looking for help and willing to offer help.

I have also scanned the whistleblower’s complaint (available here). It would not be admissible in a court of law as it is strictly hearsay. There is no direct link between the source and the information he is spouting.

It is truly sad to see members of Congress simply make things up to advance their political agenda. It would be nice if they would do something to advance the good of the country–like infrastructure, healthcare, national security, reducing spending–just to name a few.

Also, isn’t it rich that the party of the Christopher Steele dossier is complaining about foreigners interfering in American politics.

Yesterday I posted an article about the latest attack on Justice Kavanaugh published in The New York Times. As more information comes out, it becomes even more obvious that this is a political hit job. Below are a few sources and quotes.

The Washington Post passed on a thinly sourced, unproven allegation about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh before the New York Times published it in a misleading article in Sunday’s paper that has since been corrected.

The New York Times has finally admitted that the premise of its much-hyped story about an alleged incident with United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was false, as the alleged victim says she has no recollection of the incident in question.

The admission undermines what was an already weak story of dubious credibility.

On Saturday, The New York Timesran a story repeating allegations that Brett Kavanaugh was drunk at a party in college and had his genitals thrust into a woman’s face. The allegation has not been confirmed, and friends of the alleged victim say she has no recollection of the events. The man telling the story, Max Stier, represented Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was accused of exposing himself to a woman in a hotel room.

The mainstream media used to do investigative reporting. The fact that they no longer investigate allegations against conservatives or Republicans is one of the reasons the alternative media is flourishing. The New York Times story is a prime example of a political hit job disguised as a news article.

As I have previously stated, there should be a penalty for making unsubstantiated allegations against any public figure.

A FICO score is a type of credit score created by the Fair Isaac Corporation. Lenders use borrowers’ FICO scores along with other details on borrowers’ credit reports to assess credit risk and determine whether to extend credit. FICO scores take into account various factors in five areas to determine creditworthiness: payment history, current level of indebtedness, types of credit used, length of credit history, and new credit accounts.

Yesterday The Federalist posted an article about how the Trump economic policies have impacted the FICO scores of Americans.

The article reports:

Americans’ average FICO score has hit an all-time high of 706 on the personal credit rating scale. Ethan Dornhelm, the vice president for scores and analytics at FICO, told CBS News that a score of more than 700 basically qualifies individuals for just about any credit at favorable terms.

FICO scores range from 300 to 850. A score above 700 is considered great, and a score above 760 is considered excellent. This high national credit score may be largely attributed to the strong economy, with its historically low unemployment rate, and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“This record-long stretch of economic growth has helped minimize reliance on debt to pay the bills,” said Joel Griffith, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “Low interest rates help ensure a greater portion of loan payment goes to paying down principal rather than merely making interest payments.”

Creditworthiness is now increasing, which means Americans have the ability to rely on their paychecks, not just borrowing from their futures, to fulfill their financial obligations.

Americans’ average FICO score hit a low during the financial downturn of 2008, with a score of 686. After the recession passed, the nation’s average FICO score continuously grew.

Is giving Americans more access to larger lines of credit such a good thing? According to Griffith and Federal Reserve Bank data, U.S. household debt is also declining. Even now that Americans are able to take on more debt, they are not. They’re paying off their credit cards and increasingly lowering their other debt.

Unfortunately, this national accomplishment has not been a topic discussed among 2020 Democratic nominees. Why have the Democratic presidential candidates shied away from talking about the economy? Because, they call for an economy that “works for everyone,” when the current system is working for more people than ever before.

A Gallup poll shows that 88 percent of Americans believe the current U.S. economy is either “fair,” “good,” or “excellent.” That’s because this economy has provided 5.1 million new jobs and dropped the unemployment rate to 3.7 percent — the lowest rate in nearly half a century.

Leadership and economic policies make a difference to ALL Americans. The tax cuts and economic policies of President Trump have ‘worked for everyone.’ The government cannot create an economy the ‘works for everyone’ by taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who did not earn it. An economy that ‘works for everyone’ is created when everyone has the opportunity to find a job or start a company and create their own success.

On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about a recent video made by New Orleans Saints Quarterback Drew Brees.

The article reports:

Brees released a short video encouraging young people to share their faith by bringing their Bibles to school on October 3, 2019. The event is an annual celebration designed to encourage personal freedom, religious freedom, and religious pride, and is sponsored by Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian advocacy organization.

The reaction was instantaneous and intensely hostile. Sports commentator Robert Littal tweeted, “Drew Brees Created a PSA Video for an Anti-Gay Religious Cult That Believes in Conversion Therapy & Fights Against Any Anti-Discrimination Laws; Wants Kids to Bring Bible to School to Convert Other Kids.” Out Magazine, an LGBT publication, shamed Brees for associating with Focus on the Family, which they refer to as an “anti-gay extremist group.”

In 2010 Brees made a video for the It Gets Better series, which encourages LGBT youth to push through school bullying. In this video, he says, “If you’re making fun of someone because they are different, then you are no friend of mine.” He also partnered with Ellen DeGeneres to promote an anti-bullying campaign. Thus his work with Focus on the Family’s campaign, Out asserts, demonstrates a fall from grace.

Focus on the Family is not an “anti-gay extremist group.” They are a group of Christians who believe the Bible and teach from it. It seems to me that a gay community that is bringing drag queens into schools to encourage alternate life styles might not be the proper group to complain about students sharing their faith in God. Religious freedom is enshrined in our Constitution. Biblical Christianity recognizes homosexuality as a sin. It also recognizes sex out of wedlock as a sin. It does not condemn the sinner–it condemns the action and invites the sinner to repentance. The laws that Mr. Littal is accusing Focus on the Family of opposing would limit the rights of Christians. In a sense, those laws call for the discrimination of those holding Christian beliefs. Again the rights of those holding any religious belief are enshrined in our Constitution.

I am grateful for Drew Brees telling children to bring their Bible to school. If we had more Bibles in schools, we might have better discipline and less violence.